


Febuwhump 2019

by spiderboyneedsahug



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Febuwhump 2019, Major Character Injury, May Parker (Spider-Man) Needs a Hug, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 21:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderboyneedsahug/pseuds/spiderboyneedsahug
Summary: A collection of irondad and spiderson themed whump ficlets for Febuwhump 2019.





	1. Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> haha it's whumptober again yall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No. He can catch cars. He can stop buses with his bare hands. He can climb to the highest buildings in New York and leap off them and survive completely unscathed because he made the webbing, he made the first suit, he has the spider powers, he made the choice to fight when lying down and taking the hits would be so much easier.
> 
>  
> 
>  _Peter Parker_ makes the hero, not some fancy suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back and ready to die

He’d never been under so much pressure in his life. Peter breathes- that is, he tries to. It comes out as a stumbling gasp, a mockery of what it was intended to be; his ribs crack painfully and he finds himself coughing instead of inhaling. Peter’s head spins, the dusty space surrounding him engulfing his sight completely. It hurts. Everything hurts, the pressure against his entire body in unbearable but he can’t relieve it from himself. It’s crushing him, breaking him in half, and it goddamn _hurts._ For a second, Peter imagines he can hear the telltale whining of repulsors in the distance, and dares to hope, only just maneuvering himself to look up to the sky of concrete slabs that’s pinned him to the ground. He waits, and waits, for what feels like centuries and his head drops, smacking against the concrete. The dust is cold, wet; it scratches against his forehead and he thinks he might be bleeding because when he tries to lift himself up again, there’s a little red spot on the slab he’d rested on. Mr. Stark isn’t coming to rescue him, nobody is. He’s on his own here, trapped under this maze of a building, alone, injured, against impossible odds and a wing-suited maniac.

 

Peter lets out a shuddering, gasping sob.

 

He’s alone.

 

And he’s _scared._ There’s nobody here to help, there’s nobody here to see, there’s nobody here to hear his little pleas for help. There’s nobody to save him this time, and he _can’t_ do this. His fist clenches in the dust, nails scraping and splitting against the rubble. He wants Aunt May to hug him, just hold him, just so he can feel something other than his body freezing and raucous pain. His frame is wracked with shudders… and for what? He so desperately wants to be held, to feel safe and warm and secure, but… his actions, his choices- that’s what lead him here. Nobody is obligated to make him feel better because his choice landed him in this situation. Peter sniffles, arm jerking to no avail under the concrete.

 

What goddamn use is crying…? It’s pathetic. Crying isn’t going to help him in any way, it’s just going to dehydrate him and then he’ll die. If he isn’t already on his way there. He huffs in a breath, exhales harshly, and strains. Nothing happens. The desperation builds in his chest and reaches a crescendo with a yell of frustration, and his efforts to try to lift the concrete off himself succeed only in making his hands, arms, chest, _everything, everywhere_ hurt. This isn’t going to work, it could never. He’s not strong enough to lift an entire goddamn building off himself, he’s just some kid with freaky powers who got in way over his head.

 

He looks down to where his mask is half-submerged in the murky waters, staring back up at him. Peter gulps; winces. The concrete rumbles in the distance, and he cringes inwardly. He’s on limited time here, too. He needs to do something and he needs to do it fast. He’s so cold. But he’s not in a suit that’s designed to take him through these fights, he’s just in his homemade suit and… he’s just a kid with powers. Once again, he’s no professional. Not at all. If he couldn’t do it in the good suit…

 

_If you’re nothing without the suit, you shouldn’t have it._

 

Peter blinks, swallowing back the shame that the harsh words bring upon him. He pushes the feeling aside.

 

No. He can catch cars. He can stop buses with his bare hands. He can climb to the highest buildings in New York and leap off them and survive completely unscathed because _he_ made the webbing, _he_ made the first suit, _he_ has the spider powers, _he_ made the choice to fight when lying down and taking the hits would be so much easier.

 

 _Peter Parker_ makes the hero, not some fancy suit.

 

It’s gonna be tough, he thinks. Actually, no, he knows this is going to be the fight of his life. Peter shifts slightly, gets his legs under him slightly more. As a test, he tries to push up. It doesn’t work. He shakes off the disheartened feeling that tries to engulf him and grits his teeth tightly. This time, when he pushes up, he puts his all into it, strained yells slipping from his clenched jaw, and… it shifts. Slightly, barely, but it _shifts._ The concrete groans and the ice-cold fear of the building slamming him down and snapping him in half rises up again, but he doesn’t allow himself to stop. God no, not now. It barely even occurs to him that he’s just about screaming by now; the blood is rushing in his ears mutes just about everything else out. It’s moving and he’s nearly there, his limbs are about to give out on him but he can’t stop, not now, not ever.

 

With one final, strained yelp, Peter shifts the concrete just high enough that he can worm out of it, stumbling forward. His legs and arms are in agony and for a split second, he thinks he’s torn just about every muscle he could ever have. With a trembling arm, Peter reaches into the concrete nook that could have been his tomb and pulls his sodden mask back out. Slipping it back on is uncomfortable as all hell, and he nearly can’t breathe through the damp fabric, but he can’t have anyone else figuring out his identity.

 

On shaking legs, Peter stands as tall as he can, and stares to where Toomes is perched on the top of a metal signpost, watching what must be the flight from Avengers Tower.

 

That’s one fight of his life over. Now he’s got another one to do. Joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> screech at me blease


	2. Peer Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Holy _shit,_ Ned! Are you drunk?!” He regrets the question as soon as it’s out of his mouth: of course Ned is drunk. The feeble attempts at scooping Peter into a hug definitely prove that fact. Peter pats down the fluff of hair hesitantly, and uses a fraction of his strength to lift his friend up and try to gauge any way of seeing just how hammered his friend is, and not in the cool, Thor’s hammer way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nyeh nyeh nyeh

Peter has never liked parties. Even before the spider bite, they had been too loud, too full of obnoxious and insensitive people who wouldn’t watch where they were going, and there was also that whole thing where he generally never got invited to them unless it was Ned’s birthday party or May wanted him to socialise. He never minded not going to them, either. A nice book or a movie night with May and Ben was always enough for him.

 

And then, after the bite… well, enough said. If the shoving and the loud music and the people stumbling around blindly weren’t bad enough before having his senses dialled up to seventeen thousand, being able to hear each individual heartbeat, each vibration of a soundwave against the wall and into his skull, the smells and the utter chaos- he can hardly stand it. Even now, where he’s gotten slightly better at controlling the way each of his senses can affect him, he hates parties.

 

Which is why he’s so perplexed as to how exactly Ned managed to drag him out here. He can hear the chatter of three, four, maybe five nearby clusters of people, loud and annoying and so… bizarre, actually, that he can’t quite filter out the way it’s making him want to scratch out his brain with steel wool. He’s lost sight of Ned and MJ, too. Peter stumbles into the hallway, drunk off the sheer overstimulation of his brain, mumbling silent apologies to the people he bumps into even though he’s clinging as close to the walls as he can without beginning to stick to the ceilings. He needs to find Ned and MJ so his spidey-sense can get the memo that he’s fine, dammit, and they are too. Stupid parties. He can hear Flash’s obnoxiously loud voice vibrating through the walls from the main room, encouraging people to party harder (how?), but Peter ignores it in favour of slipping outside into the front garden and sitting on the concrete doorstep. The cold is a blissful change from the stifling heat inside the house; the air is clearer and crisper and so much  _ nicer  _ that he nearly finds himself relaxing. He’ll go back in to find Ned soon. After he calms down.

 

Peter runs through some of the breathing exercises he’s grown so familiar with. The cold air reaches his lungs, flushing away the panic, replacing it with sweet serenity.  _ That’s better.  _ It’s easier to ignore the stumbling footsteps of people inside the house, the tipsy yelling echoing around the place, the faint ghost of the music pumping through the floor. Peter focuses on the distant rumble of car motors, the rushing of wind past his ears. It’s nice outside. Jeez, why did he let Ned drag him into this?

 

As if the clumsy, staggering footsteps behind him (how’d they get so close?!) had heard his thoughts, a figure slumps down beside him, leaning harshly against his shoulder. Peter tenses up, head whipping around to meet the sleek, black head of hair he knows to belong to-

_ “Ned?!” _ It’s not the fact that his friend’s fluffy head of hair is resting on his shoulder that’s alarming, it’s the stench of alcohol so pungent it’s making him  _ dizzy _ from where he is that does.

“H-Hey, Pete- Peter.” He feels a limp, lazy hand trying to grasp at his bicep, but it misses by a solid few inches and lands next to the knee on the far side of him to Ned’s body. Peter feels the muscles in his shoulders wind up even tighter. What the hell? How’d Ned get so… shitfaced? He knows his friend, he knows Ned isn’t dumb enough to get this drunk at a house party full of the asshole school kids.

 

It makes him cold to think that his friend was probably pressured into drinking while he was cowering away in any free, quiet room he could find because he couldn’t stand it. This is his fault for not mediating, isn’t it?

“Holy  _ shit, _ Ned! Are you  _ drunk?!” _ He regrets the question as soon as it’s out of his mouth: of  _ course  _ Ned is drunk. The feeble attempts at scooping Peter into a hug definitely prove that fact. Peter pats down the fluff of hair hesitantly, and uses a fraction of his strength to lift his friend up and try to gauge any way of seeing just how  _ hammered _ his friend is, and not in the cool, Thor’s hammer way.

“N- no, ‘m not. Y- you’re drunk.” Ned hiccups, and Peter tenses, dreading the inevitable storm that’s coming. He’s not dumb, he knows from that time Ben came back home stumbling from a Christmas party (and the resultant, loud vomiting) and from his own research that if Ned’s had enough alcohol to be this bad, he’s probably gonna chuck up and it’s gonna be ugly as all hell.

“Oh my god, what the  _ hell…? _ Dude, how  _ many _ did you have?”

“D- I dunno, P-  _ Peter,  _ how many did you-?” Ned pauses. Blinks. Then he’s staring out into the road like he hadn’t been speaking in the first place, and Peter feels worry for his friend crawl high into his throat. And maybe some vertigo just from watching Ned sway on the spot. It’s disturbing, and the only upside to this situation is that he can’t hear Flash or anybody recording Ned’s weird attempts at hugging him. 

“Sorry, man, but- I’m gonna  _ have _ to get May here. You look like shit, dude.”

“Tha’s not very,” Another hiccup. Peter shudders. “Tha’s not very nice, Petey.”

“Jesus. Try not to die, gimme a sec.” Peter quickly dials May’s number, drumming his fingers rapidly into the concrete as he impatiently waits for her to pick up. He’s not waiting long.

_ ‘Peter? Are you already done…? It’s only been a few hours, baby.’  _ He strains to hear her voice over the chaos behind him, but just about manages it anyway.

“I know, May, I know, but- Ned’s pretty drunk and I really,  _ really  _ don’t want him to like- break his liver tonight. I’m done anyway, I was done ten minutes after we got here. It’s so  _ loud,  _ May.” His eyes close, the street in front of him fading into a blissful nothing. Much better than the bright, unnecessary neon ones inside. He focuses his senses on Ned’s warmth next to him, grounds himself with it. It drives away any oncoming chance of a sensory overload with alarming ease. Huh. That’s new.

_ ‘Alright, baby, I’m on my way. You think he’s gonna barf?’ _

“God, May- um- I don’t think so, he hasn’t yet. He’s just tryna hug me. A lot.” He jolts at the cold hand that manages to get under the sleeve of his right wrist, feeling the iciness acutely. “Ned, hands outta my sleeve please. You’re cold.” Ned doesn’t listen. He worms a little closer. Peter sighs, defeated, and allows his friend to nearly envelop him in a hug, mumbling fractured, random fragments of sentences that make everything that much more confusing instead of it all making sense. He hears May laughing over the phone and Ned’s slurred, vehement ‘no’, and deflates slightly. 

_ ‘I’ll be there in a second, baby.’ _

 

For some reason, ‘a second’ doesn’t feel short enough. Especially given that Ned is trying to spoon him now. The hug is pleasant, but he wishes Ned was in his right mind. He’s nicely warm against his side. Peter finds himself mumbling absently to Ned if only to try and soothe his drunk friend, and waiting for May’s familiar car to pull up and allow him to escape this miniature hell. He really, really doesn’t like house parties. And then, much to his relief, about fifteen minutes into the wait for May, she arrives. Peter is just thankful that this place isn’t too far from the apartment. He’d swing back, but one, he doesn’t have the suit (the web shooters are something he wears just about everywhere. Just in case.), and two, Ned would definitely not appreciate the jarring movement that launching oneself from building to building brings about. Instead, he manoeuvres his friend into the back of May’s car and slips in on the opposite side. 

“Does his mom know yet, Peter?” He tenses. Shit. No, he forgot about Ned’s mom.  _ Shit. _

“Uh- no, not yet, May. Can we just- can we tell her Ned’s crashing at ours? I’m pretty sure Ned was- I’m- I think some people pressured him into drinking as much as he did, and it’s kinda my fault for not being there to tell them to leave him alone, and really, this isn’t Ned’s fault and he shouldn’t get in trouble for something that isn’t his fault, so like-” May holds up a hand. He falls silent.

“Peter. Calm down, baby. You’re freaking out on me. Ned can crash around ours, sure. Just… you know how to deal with a hangover?” May’s voice sounds almost apologetic, and Peter frowns. He knows what a hangover is and how miserable it’s gonna make his friend, but there’s a difference between reading articles online and actually treating someone suffering from one. He shakes his head.

“I’ll help you out then.” 

 

A quiet snoring fills the car as May drives them back. It’s good to know that Ned is sleeping it off already but also, Peter’s gonna have to ruin that by carrying him into the apartment and really, Peter’s not quite tall enough to be able to carry Ned without rousing suspicion from anyone who sees this.  _ Whatever, _ Peter thinks, looking at his sleeping friend,  _ I’ve survived worse. _

 

Turns out, Ned’s a cuddly drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> callin it quits, now baby i'm a wreck, crash at my place baby you're a wreck
> 
> ooooOOOooooOOoOoOooOOoOOOoOh
> 
> some things you just can't refuuuuuuuse


	3. Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _‘Sending emergency SOS to Mr. Stark. Hold tight, Peter. You’re going to be fine.’_ Karen’s voice, so quiet and soothing, is drowned out by the growling speech of the people above him, the people who have hold of him now. He wants to scream and fight back as his limp body is dragged out of the boot of the car, but he’s locked into silence at the hand of his own survival instincts and he can’t even speak right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, the beauty of whump. noice

It takes him a solid few hours to figure out something isn’t right, especially because his eyesight is wobbling and coherent thoughts are nothing but a speck on the horizon. Very little makes sense in this package he’s finding himself in, locked into his own body like it’s a straightjacket. Why can’t he move? What happened? He receives no answer, not from his memories, not from his thoughts, not from anyone outside his own shell of a mind. Peter finds himself floating away back into oblivion with the fragmented remains of shattered thoughts left in his head.

 

It’s not much better the next time he comes to, either. He can feel the vibrations of something across the entire left side of his body, the side he’s lying on, drilling into his skull and burrowing into his brain. It burns. He can’t move. His shoulders ache and his wrists burn, like they’re being dug into. Maybe they are. His ankles knock together when he musters the energy to twitch his leg. A quiet, pathetic noise rings out wherever he is, echoing sadly. Everything feels muted, restrained, like he’s being kept from the input of the world at an arm’s grasp. He’s much too weak to struggle, to fight his way out of wherever he is. His grip on consciousness itself is tenuous enough yet here he is, clinging on but barely, by a thin spider’s web. He can’t see anything, or hear more than the screaming vibrations in his ears from whatever he’s lying on. An incoherent noise, meant to be a question, slips past his loose lips, and the world erupts into a haze of blue. Peter cries out, and bucks weakly against whatever he’s trapped in. It’s too narrow, too small. 

_ ‘Peter, can you hear me? Please respond.’ _ The polite voice- Karen, that’s Karen. She’s still here. He’s still in the suit. How…? He can’t remember. He remembers- he remembers going home from school, hugging May, putting on the suit, then- it all gets hazy, nonsensical, difficult. What happened? How did he wind up here?

_ ‘Peter, can you hear me? Response required within two minutes and forty three seconds or emergency signal will be sent to Mr. Stark.’  _ What? Why? What’s happening? Peter twitches, moaning in pain when the shift causes fractals of pain to stab readily all across his brain. What the hell causes this kind of pain, he’s Spider-Man for god’s sake! He shouldn’t be… he shouldn’t be this weak.

 

The vibrations beneath his cease abruptly, and Peter finds himself tensing like a wound up coil. The spider-sense at the back of his skull is picking up volume in its screaming, overriding all sensible instincts, and he’s slack and loose-limbed before he can register that he’s changed survival tactic. Whatever is above him clicks and whirs open, obviously mechanically assisted… he’s in a car boot? There’s muttering above him, deep-toned and guttural that trigger the weirdest instinct to run and hide, buried deep within his psyche, but he doesn’t understand much of it. They’re distant and muffled and what the hell did they do to him, he can’t make sense of anything, he’s panicking, he can’t move, his breaths are painfully slow and his muscles aren’t getting the oxygen they need for him to escape and oh god, he’s gonna die, he’s screwed up and now he’s gonna die-

_ ‘Sending emergency SOS to Mr. Stark. Hold tight, Peter. You’re going to be fine.’ _ Karen’s voice, so quiet and soothing, is drowned out by the growling speech of the people above him, the people who have hold of him now. He wants to scream and fight back as his limp body is dragged out of the boot of the car, but he’s locked into silence at the hand of his own survival instincts and he can’t even speak right now. He tries to keep Karen’s words, the only calm he has, he tries to keep them looping in his head because Karen has sent off a message and he’s going to be fine, he’s going to be fine, he’s going to be fine and alive and he’s gonna go home safe and sound and nothing is going to happen to him, but-

 

He hasn’t been saved yet. He’s still frozen, being dragged by these people who he can’t see or understand, and he’s so cold and he’s so numb and everything feels so terrible and alien at the same time and  _ why isn’t he panicking, why is nothing happening?!  _ He can’t do anything to save himself and that’s the most unsettling thought he’s possibly ever had, sinking into his mind like some toxic deadweight and poisoning him, making his stomach do flips. His throat is tight and it burns like he’s restraining tears, and Karen is trying to whisper small calming things to him now he’s beginning to freak out but the blood rushing in his ears is way too loud to hear anything else over the top of and he can’t breathe, he just- can’t-

 

It doesn’t occur to him that the chatter has stopped and has instead grown louder, more angry, until he’s curling in on himself as much as possible because those angry voices want to hurt him and he’s defenceless, alone, by himself against impossible odds and he doesn’t even have himself to rely on this time, just blind luck and-

 

There’s an arching flash of white-hot pain through his leg, blinding, searing, and suddenly he’s been pried out of his shell with more speed than he thought possible. He’s freezing, damp, his head is killing him and the floor is digging rocks into his flesh; painful, biting rocks into him. There’s a shrill, panicked noise echoing through the room he’s in now, something childlike and wounded that triggers his urge to protect even through his raw throat and the wildfire tearing him apart from the inside, and it never occurs to him that the crying in the warehouse is himself, wailing around the bullet wound in his thigh. He doesn’t realise the harshness against his side is the interconnecting plates of the Iron Man suit. It never occurs to him that he’s being held, that Karen’s reassuring whispers have been replaced with a worried, no, terrified stream of words that could only be those of Mr. Stark because really, they don’t make much sense, nothing does, and he doesn’t-

 

* * *

 

Peter blinks awake, sluggish, hazy, but it’s different to the numbing, cold terror of last time. He’s warmer, the world is softer, brighter, and there are voices all around him. A hand in his own, wonderfully warm and gentle against his skin, rubbing small circles into his palm. This time, when he tries to wake up, his eyelids come open slowly, but easily, and the world is warmer than it has been in a while.

“Peter?” Comes a quiet, sleepy voice from beside him, worn around the edges. They could do with some water. Actually, he could, too. Peter turns his head painlessly to stare at the person sat beside him.

 

Mr. Stark.

 

“Heya, kiddo.” Peter watches the small, broken smile rise up onto the expression of his pseudo-father-figure, dimmed by clear exhaustion and worry. So Peter returns the look with a dopey smile of his own, definitely a little weird, and waves as much as he can with a limp hand. Something in Mr. Stark’s expression breaks and becomes that much more  _ real,  _ that much more  _ upset,  _ and it twists Peter’s heart. He’s drawn into a hug, barely, because he’s still in a hospital bed and Mr. Stark can’t do much for that; it’s more of a loose grip but the emotions are conveyed none the same. 

“Please don’t  _ ever _ do that again.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it gets so much worse rofl


	4. "Where are you?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “‘m in a buildin’, Mr. St’rk. Du- dunno where. Sorry.” Peter winces at the sound of his own voice, slumping back further against the rubble behind him. He must have hit his head pretty hard. Well, he can’t really remember what got him thrown through a wall, so… he probably did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more buildings. yeet.

_‘Peter? Peter, kid. Spider-Man. Spider-Man! Are you there?!’_

 

Peter groans quietly, blearily raising a hand to shield his eyes from the slat of sunlight bleeding into his eyes from above. What the hell…? He rolls over, tired, and tries to curl back up. This place is really uncomfortable, really. His entire body tingles with the ache of a bruise; deep and permeating and the kind he can’t just ignore. When he tries to sit up, his breaths are shuddering, and there’s a slight chance somebody went at every muscle in his body with a grater because it shouldn’t hurt this much just to drag himself upright. In the end, he’s propped up against a slab of rubble, blood streaking from where he had been on the floor to where he is now, with the tingling sensation across his body growing ever-worse by the second.

 

He looks around, then _really_ looks around. There’s a hole in a nearby wall, very much shaped like a him-sized impact, so he can assume he went through that wall and found up here. That’s simply logic. The rest of his surroundings… there’s a flare of panic rising up in his chest, slamming him by the neck with ruthless brutality. He stares up into a maze of destroyed floors, concrete slabs precariously balanced on top of each other, and Peter realises he’s the star of by far the most dangerous game of Jenga he’s ever seen in his lifetime.

 

_‘PETER! Kid, are you there? Come in Spider-Man, respond!’_

 

When he looks up, the rubble seems to be coming down on him like it did the last time. Peter’s breaths turn ragged, quick, because really, if that all comes down again and he’s stuck eating dust, then he needs to get as much good oxygen as he can _while_ he can, right? He can hear Toomes in the recesses of his mind, that sneering, mocking tone, the way he talked down to him, the horrible things he did and the building’s coming down, his spidey-sense is going off the walls and the building is coming down but he can’t move this time, either, because there’s a gap in his side that shouldn’t be there and he’s getting blood all over himself.

 

_‘Peter, where are you? Kid? Where are you?’_

 

The building groans, still only just not collapsed. Peter whimpers quietly, the sound unwelcome and unwanted as it escapes and bounces from the walls, mocking, laughing, deafening him in the otherwise complete silence that drowns him. It’s horrible and really, he wants to clamber out of this place and rejoin the fight out there, but he can’t because he can feel his pulse through the hole in his side and the thick, gushing stream of blood rushing through the injury, coating his hands. It feels disgusting, and sticky, and so many different kinds of unsettling that Peter really doesn’t know where to begin. So he holds his tongue and holds his place, hand firmly over the slick, bloody wound in his side and hopes that maybe, his healing will kick in soon an he can go home without bothering anybody else today. It doesn’t really occur to him that an injury this severe won’t heal quickly or easily, and that’s without the fight or the swing home.

 

Keeping the noises of pain in sucks. Peter’s freezing but he can feel the cold sweat dripping down his spine from the tension in his body, and the injury is on fire while everything else is flowing ice.

 

 _‘Peter, are you there?! Kid? Either you respond or I find you with Karen and whoop your ass myself, Peter!’_ Mr. Stark’s voice sounds rough, angered, annoyed, but Peter has heard it enough times by now to know that it’s worry and he knows something isn’t right. Well. He might as well spare himself some suffering and just tell the man where he is. Which- actually, uh… that’s a good question.

“‘m in a buildin’, Mr. St’rk. Du- dunno where. Sorry.” Peter winces at the sound of his own voice, slumping back further against the rubble behind him. He must have hit his head pretty hard. Well, he can’t really remember what got him thrown through a wall, so… he probably did.

 _‘It’s alright, kiddo, I’m on my way. You good?’_ The change in tone from irate to concerned would almost be astounding if Peter weren’t used to it. He’s heard Happy talking to Rhodey about how paternal Mr. Stark gets over him, and- well, he’s been subject to the nearly-smothering tendencies enough to know it’s true, as well.

“Um- ‘m bleeding. Think I hit m’head.”

 

He hears a curse through the comms, none too quiet, and hisses slightly. The sharp, jarring noise hurts his head a little.

 _‘Hey, shit, kid, I’m sorry. Fuck. On my way over now, alright? I’m gonna be there in just a minute. Hang in there buddy.’_ Peter hums quietly and curls in slightly on himself. It’s getting dark outside now. He wonders if May is waiting for him to come home for dinner. He hopes not. She’ll be hungry. Besides, he’s pretty tired out here like he is. He might just have to take a raincheck on going home for tonight, just find somewhere warm to nap. This place isn’t bad, but it’s still pretty cold and open to the elements.

 

Much to his surprise, when Iron Man lands next to him with all of his usual dramatic flair, he doesn’t flinch or jump. He just looks over, exhausted, to his hero. He watches Mr. Stark step out of the suit and his eyes fall upon his injuries, growing wide, before he’s being scooped up in gold-titanium alloy covered arms and _wow,_ Mr. Stark sure can be fast when he wants to be, huh? He still aches all over but it’s more muted now, easier to ignore under the calm grasp of sleepiness that seems to be resting deep into his bones, drawing him in close. He’s so tired.

“Hey, kiddo. You’re good now, you hear me? You’ve done great. You’ve done great. You’re safe now. I got you.”

  
And even though there’s a hole in his side, he’s been through a wall, and his day has generally just been _shit,_ Peter knows it’s true. It doesn’t matter where he is. He’s safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kyjdnfnsj yell at me


	5. Major Character Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been two weeks since Peter disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hint from the title: i'm killing someone off (but it's only for this chapter, the rest don't follow this one)

From the offset, Tony knows that there is way too much blood. It’s coating the floor, the tacky, cold, crimson fluid, coagulated and sickeningly thick. He can taste the metallic,  _ deathly  _ taste of blood from where he stands. The stench permeates the walls, the floor. It’s horrifying. How many creatures were made here? How many people were snatched off the streets of New York and ripped apart in the name of some mockery of science? How many?

 

Nobody answers Tony’s growing list of internal questions. All he has are discarded shreds of what might be body parts, scattered across long hallways and empty cells. Blood spread up the walls like perverted moss. Water dripping somewhere far away. He tries to avoid staring into the damp-scented, mouldy looking cells where he can see silhouetted forms and the telltale stench of decaying bodies from within. He still has to, just in case he finds what he’s looking for within. 

 

It makes him sick. They’re all dead. It doesn’t look like it had been easy. There’s a corpse with a grotesque, half-formed protrusion that could have been a reptilian tail from the bottom of the spine; patchy, raised areas that are a mockery of scales litter the body. There are torn, deep wounds all over their arms and blood under the fingernails that had grown almost into claws, but not quite there. Cold bile rises up into his throat and settles there. The display of the corpse that FRIDAY displays are nothing short of  _ fucked up;  _ none of them read out or look right at all. At the time this person died, they weren’t quite human anymore. 

 

Tony shudders. 

 

That isn’t the only one. Not by a long shot. Each body he stumbles across is distorted, abused,  _ clearly _ beaten and broken, a passing shadow of what they once were. Tony presses forward, gut wrenching pain rising up from his core. Cold sweat drips down his neck, even through the suit; raised repulsor shining light across the room. It’s empty but full and sickening. His blood is made of ice. It’s hard to move; his limbs are frozen and bending them is painful. A challenge that he can’t win without hurting himself in the process. But what else is new? His entire life has been a cycle of harm and progress. So what else is new? Why shouldn’t he keep pressing forward?

 

… 

 

It’s been two weeks since Peter disappeared. 

 

It hadn’t been obvious for the first day, maybe two. Tony thought he’d overslept, May thought he was patrolling, Ned thought he was at an Internship thing. Either way, it doesn’t matter now. It’s been two weeks. There hasn’t been any messages, any threatening emails. No random deals, no communication, no nothing. The Spider-Man suit is at the Parker apartment, untouched, in a wardrobe like normal. His phone isn’t there, but it isn’t on, either. Tony had tried tracking it. It had lead to a muddy outcrop, surrounded by nothing out of the ordinary. He’d found pieces of cracked glass, warped metal. A broken phone. But not a single trace of Peter. They’ve searched —  _ god,  _ they’ve turned New York upside down and back up again searching for Peter. But there’s been no trace of him at all, not even a whisper on the streets and it’s been driving Tony and May and Ned and everyone who knows the kid mad with worry. Hell, even Happy has been expressing his concern by now. 

 

Logically, Tony knows that, given the horrible display of twisted, wretched bodies lining the hallways, this place is not what he wants it to be. 

 

Emotionally… 

 

The tarnished, dirtied, bloodied logo of  _ Oscorp  _ lies on the wall to Tony’s far side. He presses forward. There are human-sized test tubes, cages, vats of odd looking fluid pressed against the wall snugly and consoles everywhere. Tony’s throat tightens. 

_ ‘I’m in their databases now, boss. If they’re hiding anything…’ _

 

Tony doesn’t respond to FRIDAY’s grim words. There’s a room ahead of him, locked door standing out sharply against the slimy-looking walls. Almost unnaturally clean, pristine, normal. His steps pick up the pace, echoing around the complex maze of an underground laboratory. The door obviously needs some kind of identification, a card or something, but this place is abandoned and it has been for what seems like a while, so there’s no use in even trying to find a non-violent way in. Besides, this place was never meant to hold back Iron Man. It was meant to keep things in, not out. 

 

The room is dark as he steps into it, heavy clunking footstep meeting his ears unflinchingly. His repulsor is the only light in the room.

 

There’s a body here, too. The realisation is a cold slap in the face, cruel, icy. Tony’s entire body turns to static, discordant, painful, and he can’t blink or breathe or do anything.

 

No.

 

_ God,  _ no.

 

Peter is lying in front of him. Unmoving. 

 

Tony walls over and drops down to his knees beside the child; rolls him over onto his back. 

_ “Peter.” _

 

The body doesn’t flinch or twitch in response to his words and for one dreadful second he fears this body is just another random child and not Peter. That second passes when he shines light upon the slack, pale face, revealing the endearingly round cheeks and curly mop of hair he knows with certainty belongs to Peter. The dread is gone, replaced with acid, sharp, painful, unbearable. He can’t suck in a breath through lungs filled with lead. His throat is uncomfortably tight, growing worse by the second, something he can’t ignore.

“...Peter…?”

 

Nothing. 

 

Tony shakes his head, eyes burning, voice caught in his throat, unable to escape. This can’t be happening, this isn’t meant to be happening, this can’t happen. He tries calling the boy’s name a few more times, hands shaky as he tries to rouse him back to awareness. It’s too dark to see if there’s any damage to the kid. Desperation grows heavy in his stomach, a weight; it tastes bitter and acidic and very similar to bile but he can’t swallow it back down where he can’t feel it because Peter’s body is limp in his arms; there’s no resistance to his shakes.

 

Tony draws his hands back, down to his side where they remain, trembling harshly. Peter doesn’t move. His little frown is still firmly in place, mouth slightly parted. He can’t see any wisps of breath in the dark, cold room. His expression is slack. His eyes are closed, peacefully sleeping.

 

He doesn’t need FRIDAY to know what he’s looking at won’t give any vital readings. 

 

Tony crawls closer to Peter, and he knows his lips and mouthing the boy’s name, trembling also, he knows the world is growing wobbly from the tears in his eyes but he’s powerless to stop it as he gathers Peter into a mockery of a hug. The boy’s limbs are still and pliant, they shouldn’t be, they should be wrapping around him like they never really got to do in life, but they don’t, they don’t move, they don’t wrap around him; Tony gathers Peter’s body up into his arms and presses his forehead close to the child’s, tears spilling unrelentingly down onto his cheeks. There’s no puff of warm breath against his cheek.

 

Finally, the vice in his throat gives out, and the noise that escapes him isn’t human.

 

There’s no response.

 

* * *

 

The staticky silence doesn’t leave after that.

 

Tony leaves the facility with a bundle in his arms, stiff and unmoving, much like his heart. The world has entered greyscale. When he arrives at the compound, he’s empty. Helen has to pry the bundle from him after realising what it is. There are tears in her eyes, too. She tries to speak to him, but he can’t hear her words. He can just feel that his arms are empty, and he is too. Happy tries to console him, voice thick, crying as well. Tony just stands there in the middle of the medical bay, in his Iron Man suit, hollow.

 

He doesn’t remember when he finally collapses. 

 

He wakes up to people at his bedside, and his first thought is that they should be with Peter.

 

Peter is dead.

 

Gone.

 

And suddenly, he wishes he’d never woken up in the first place. 

 

He’s brought into an embrace; multiple embraces. The people are crying, too. May Parker is one of them. She’s in hysterics. He doesn’t blame her. Tony stumbles upright, and collapses next to her. 

 

They cry themselves into oblivion.

 

Peter is gone.

 

* * *

 

The funeral is a quiet matter. He’s stiff, silent, as May cries against his side — no, sobs. She’s quaking violently against his side, and he distantly registers that there are tears rolling down his own face. The sky is grim-faced, crying like they are. Thunder rumbles quietly in the distance. The air tastes like upturned dirt, the tang of the damp earth disturbed permeating his every sense. He can’t look away from the casket. 

 

He can’t stop thinking about Peter, alone in that case, small and cold and alone. At peace but so disturbed. He can’t stop thinking about how much he didn’t say, how many words are resting on the top of his tongue with no canvas to spill on, nowhere to go. 

 

He can’t stop thinking about all the time he never got to spend with his kid. All the time May never got to spend with her kid, all the time that was stolen from Peter and the time they can’t get back. His lungs feel tight like he’s breathing tar and can’t get any air in, like his lungs are melting and his heart is stopping. 

 

But it isn’t. 

 

And Tony doesn’t know which would have been worse. 

 

It’s a quiet affair throughout. Tony struggles to breathe; struggles to hide the way his eyes burn and his cheeks are damp and even though he’s wearing his sunglasses it’s painfully obvious that he’s  _ wrecked,  _ this kid- 

 

Losing Peter is destroying him and he could never have known that this would have happened. He’s meant to be a futurist, he’s meant to clear the path and lead the way for the new generation but he can’t help but feel that the world has just lost one of the brightest minds it could ever have had and he was powerless to stop it from happening. 

 

There’s so many things that could have been done differently. So many small things that could have meant Peter could have been snoozing against his side peacefully, warm, alive, happy and safe, but he isn’t. Those things happened. Tony didn’t prevent Peter from being murdered and now that loss is going to weigh him down into oblivion, a nameless haze waiting to just swallow him whole and finally tear him apart, and he’s really considering just letting that happen because Peter’s dead, he’s dead in a coffin, he died alone after god knows what type of experimentations and pain and fear and ultimately, Tony failed at being the kid’s father-figure, didn’t he? He didn’t do enough. He couldn’t save Peter.

 

He failed this kid. And he has no chance to make up for it. He’s got no chance to surprise Peter by showing up to school events, he can’t help the kid get into MIT, he can’t guide Spider-Man as a hero. He can’t watch the kid’s life flourish. He never got to tell Peter just how much he loves him.

 

The world seems that much emptier now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> peter is very much alive in all my other chapters, consider this an AU
> 
>  
> 
> also please yell at me for killing peter lol


End file.
